Personal consumer electronic devices that have a small profile such as smart phones and tablet computers have a very limited z-height or thickness (distance in the direction of the z-axis), in which to fit an integrated digital camera module. This is in contrast to the relatively deep housing of a dedicated handheld camcorder or high-end digital SLR camera. The small profile, however, presents a problem in view of the continuing trend to deliver digital pictures that have increasing resolution using larger color pixel sensor arrays. Despite improvements in pixel density, the overall area of the pixel array increases substantially for higher resolution sensors, e.g. 5 megapixels and greater. This may not be a large issue if the pixel array can be oriented within the device housing to lie within the x-y plane, i.e. perpendicular to the z-axis. However, in that configuration the limited z-height of the device housing places a constraint on the length of the optical subsystem, e.g. an autofocus lens, a zoom lens, which in turn limits camera performance.